I never really knew much about Romania—I was never taught about the country in school. But recently, my eyes have been opened to how clueless I truly am about the country. This past Wednesday, I had the privilege of going to the screening for the 2001 film “Minor Visions” by Vassar Associate Professor of Film Denise Iris and the Russian Studies Department. The screening was new territory to me—I have never attended a screening at Vassar—but I was very interested because I have always loved history.
“Minor Visions” takes place in Romania in the year 2000. The film is a documentary that blends in narrative elements about a fictional college student who goes to different Orthodox monasteries in the billowing mountains of the countryside. He is accompanied by miracle-working icons to conduct a field study on religion, specifically Orthodox Christianity, which includes many interviews of non-actors. Denise Iris did the actual filming, but framed the movie for people to view it as if it was a natural video diary from this fictional student. The viewing experience was deeply raw. I watched this young man slowly unravel over the course of the film as he confronted a diverse expanse of ideas surrounding superstition, devotion and spirituality.
The emotional whiplash of this film leaves the viewer reeling, in part due to the variety of people interviewed. One moment, a father would be humorously teasing his daughters, sun glinting off their faces, about how they have to love him more than their mother. Then, a girl would be ranting that she swears Mormons eat human blood. Abruptly, the shot would change to a man talking about his childhood experience of his brother’s near death, or a little boy discussing stealing from the nearby—extremely unsafe—rundown factory to sell for money to feed himself. The interviews felt very jarring, but also very representative of the oscillating human experience, and thus very revealing to life in Romania during this time. Part of the shocking nature—I learned after the film—tied into the fact that Romanian people used humor to cope with their suffering. Comedy was the only way they could think of to survive the horrors they were experiencing.
At the screening, I learned about the Romanian people, their struggle through the collapse of communism post-revolution, and how they pulled themselves together after being torn to pieces by totalitarianism in the ’40s. During the communist regime, food was rationed, and hot water was considered a privilege. Atheism was instituted and a promoted ideology, so any other kind of religion had to be discreet. You could be fired from an office job for being publicly Christian. Many monasteries and churches were hidden away in caves, so that people could be themselves and thrive without fear of being found out. Romanians had their liberties taken away from them overnight. Years later—once everything was being restored—they had no idea how to maneuver this newfound life: One that was once familiar, now foreign. This limbo is the time in which the film takes place, revealing the burning growing pains of coming back into something that was once theirs.
In the Q&A afterwards, I learned how much Iris dedicated to this film that we did not get to experience during the screening itself. Whenever I go see a movie in theaters and I watch the credits, I always find it fascinating how much it takes to make a film. The effort poured into “Minor Visions” was tangible, but Iris as director took such a unique approach with her tools. She kept things frugal in terms of equipment, to maintain the illusion of an inexperienced person’s video diary instead of a high-definition movie you would see in the theater. This time I got to hear directly from the creator about the behind the scenes magic I always marvel at in the theaters. For example, in a part of the film there was an Orthodox chant, and it sounded like a choir was singing a song from a church pew. At the end, we found out that Iris could not get the rights to the chant, so she learned it herself, recorded it and then layered the samples to make it sound like a real choir. It just goes to show how much work goes into movies that we never get to see, but we still must appreciate.
A crucial part of “Minor Visions” is its interviews with real people. When asked how she earned these people’s trust, Iris smiled and said that coming to someone with an open heart and mind, and just being willing to listen to them can do wonders for getting people to trust you in return. This movie heavily revealed that there is so much the viewer does not know, so much they will never know, no matter how much they think they do. I know, despite my love for research, there is so much history out there that I will never learn. But at the “Minor Visions” screening, I got a taste of some of the culture and history across the pond that I’ve been missing. And I’m already craving more.